Comparing two sonnets - help!

Hi ya, its likely that one of the exam questions Ill be getting is "compare the use of form (i.e. sonnet) in two poems".
Im looking into comparing sonnet 130 by Shakespeare and John Crowe Ransom's Piazza Piece because they're from different time periods and both relate to petrarchan conventions (I think!). Is that right? i mean Shakespeare subverts the Petrarchan conventions of idealising a mistress, and Ransom uses the typical theme of an unresponsive mistress, with a petrarchan structure.
Can anyone help me out on how I could logically compare them throughout an essay? Would I talk about them both individually and then at the end compare the different uses of form/subject matter etc?
arrgghhh im so confused!

Reply 1

Da Bachtopus

Go through all the differnces between Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets. The question is specifically about form, so you should be looking at the way the argument is handled, not how it relates to the Petrarchan tradition. Still, I feel I should point out that Shakespeare's sonnet is not subversive in the sense that it's original, as the anti-Petrarchan tradition was well-established.

Reply 2

_poptart_

so i should go through how the actual structure of the sonnet is used to aid their argument? i.e. the use of "turn" at the final couplet to reveal Shakespeare's true feelings about his lover?

Piazza Piece
- I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all.
The want the young men's whipering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trelling dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

- I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Untill my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what grey man among the vines in this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

For Piazza Piece can anyone suggest where the "turn" in argument is? Is it just when the young lady starts to speak in the sestet?